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An Open Letter to “Nice Guys”

You think the game-face you pop on whenever you approach a girl you want to sleep with is the only side of you the rest of us women see. But that’s not the case. We see all of you. We see how you treat your mother, your sisters, your aunts, nieces, daughters, and female friends. We see how you treat women, all women, not just the ones you want to have sex with.

We see that your kindness is reserved for those who will give you something in return. Outside of that environment, you’re not nice.

We see how you mistreat an old woman who gets in your way on the street. We see that you simply don’t have time to hold open a door for the overweight mother with two children and two bags of groceries. We see how every word you speak to a woman you have no intention–or talent enough–to sleep with is laced with contempt.

You talk about women as if they’re things, not people. You identify women from the vagina up. You categorize their worthiness by how their bodies are shaped, how attractive they are to you, and how receptive they’ll be to your advances. You insult and degrade women who don’t give you what you want.

Elliot Rodgers, in a sad bit of irony, characterized himself as a nice guy. He did this before he killed 7 people in cold blood. In one horrible move, he summarized the Nice Guy movement, what it’s really about, frustrated and angry young men who aren’t getting any, but think they should be.

While very few “nice guys” will eventually go on a killing spree–or even have Rodgers’s lack of human decency–many profess the same line of reasoning. “The young, pretty women of the world owe me sex. Why? Because I want to have sex. And I should get what I want, because I’m a nice guy.”

But being nice to people because it may get you something has nothing to do with being a good person. Bad people do that, too.

What you have isn’t kindness. What you are isn’t nice. What you are is passionless and aimless. You’re heartless. You’re lazy. You have no ambition except to get laid. You have no cause, no purpose, no drive. You won’t lift a finger to help someone else, not unless it means you get something in return. You’re a narcissist, selfish, self-obsessed, and it’s obvious to us that you are empty. You have nothing to offer but a polite smile. But your facade cracks to pieces the instant you don’t get what you think the world owes you. Under all that thin, polished ceramic is nothing.

And we know this. We can hear it in your voice the instant you open your mouth to speak. Women are intuitive, scarily so. If you’re just looking for sex, you had better have a good game. You better be so good at feigning love that you feel it in your heart when you speak to us. You’d better have depth. You’d better be someone we can talk to, find common interests with, and connect with, not an empty vessel.

I’ve seen these “jerks” who get the girl. They aren’t nice. They’re real. They’re confident. They persist, but aren’t desperate. They’re fearless but also genuine–or at least really good at appearing to be. They have usually lived enough of a life outside of stagnating in front of a game console that they have stories to tell, something to offer, a passion for living, and a personality. They may be playing women, but they’re at least good at it. They at least know women enough to understand what actually works.

You, on the other hand, don’t have a clue about women, because you haven’t bothered to listen to them. You tune them out, all the women around you (mothers, sisters, aunts, coworkers, even the girl who put you in the dreaded “friend zone”), because women don’t exist to you unless they are obtainable objects of your desire. So you have no idea how they think, what they want, how they feel, and how easy it is for them to sense all that you’re lacking.

So to the nice guys, the “friend zoned,” the “only jerks get the girls” guys: It’s not yet hopeless. Put something in your overly-polished temple. Be man enough to love and cherish those around you who can give you nothing in return, treat women (all women) like human beings with actual thoughts and feelings as profound as your own, and for God’s sake, make something of yourself!

Perhaps, maybe, if you change your approach to life, your life with change.

Disclaimer: Not all nice guys fit this model. This is mostly aimed at those with a mindset similar to Elliot Rodgers, who may not be future murderers, but have grown to hate and resent women because of their own ineptitude.